Linguistics
Welcome Incoming Students!
Western's Department of Linguistics has a cohort of about 170 students, and an eager and active Associated Students Linguistics Club. Faculty from several departments contribute to our department, including from Modern and Classical Languages, Anthropology, and Computer Science.
We lead students not only to find interesting and engaging careers, but also to give back to their communities in important ways. Our alumni are teaching, creating, writing, analyzing, and serving in a vast array of careers and civic engagement.
“Linguistics has helped me to approach language scientifically, to appreciate the beauty of language, and to feel constantly surrounded by ambient language data that always leaves me with interesting questions to think about.”
News and Events
In-Person and Remote Advising Available
The Department of Linguistics will be operating remotely this summer, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. For in-person advising or department tours, please contact Sara Helms, sara.helms@wwu.edu.
Please see our Faculty and Staff page for office hours and contact information.
Decoding the sounds of the rainforest
Neal Digre, ‘16, is using the machine learning and linguistics skills he learned at WWU in the $10 million XPRIZE Rainforest competition.
Read the full story by John Thompson
WWU LING Student Presents Research At LSA Conference
WWU LING major Ilsa O’Rollins has kept busy between her involvement with the LSA and Western’s Linguistics Department. Read the full story here.
Dr. Kristin Denham
Professor of Linguistics Dr. Kristin Denham has been inducted into the 2024 class of Fellows of the Linguistics Society of America.
Linguistic Sleuth
Read about the fascinating research of WWU's Dr. Edward Vajda
Story by John Thompson
Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Linguistics
In our courses here at Western, we are interested in the ways in which the study of language can provide the tools, the analytical skills, and the historical and cultural context to better understand the ways in which language is used to separate, segregate, and discriminate.
Read our Racial Justice Statement
It’s important to us that our department is not only a welcoming place for everyone, intolerant of discrimination, but that we are actively working to dismantle power structures that serve to discriminate against underrepresented populations.
Student Spotlight
We want to hear from you. If you have news to share, email us at linguistics@wwu.edu or call us at 360-650-3914.
2023-2024 Department of Linguistics Outstanding Graduating Senior
Ilsa O'Rollins stands out as a scholar, a collaborative classmate, and an involved member of the WWU linguistics community. Her drive to identify important research questions across a wide range of languages and then dive into that research is unparalleled among undergraduates. She has a forthcoming article on Ket (a language of Siberia), co-authored with two faculty members. She presented her research at the Linguistic Society of America annual meeting, and she will present work on Asante Twi (a language of Ghana that she has conducted fieldwork on) at the Northwest Linguistics Conference. Ilsa received a grant through WWU’s Research and Sponsored Programs to conduct independent research on Asante Twi, and she received funding from the Dean’s Fund for Excellence to attend the Linguistic Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst last summer, and she was awarded one of the Department of Linguistics scholarships for 2023-24. Ilsa is also very involved in the life of the department, helping to organize the Student-Faculty reading group in linguistics, and being a kind and calming presence in our department.
Ilsa O'Rollins2023-2024 Department of Linguistics Outstanding Graduating Senior
2023-2024 Department of Linguistics Exceptional Student Awardees
Ana Marbett, Theia Johnson, Alex Williams, Koko Imai, Mae Bash
2023-2024 Exceptional Student in Spanish-Linguistics Awardee
Javin Morrison
2024-2025 Denham Family Linguistics Student Scholarship Awardee
Wren Mason-Todd
2024-2025 Anne Lobeck Linguistics Student Scholarship Awardees
Nicole Wasson, Anuk Centellas, Ari Rose
Linguistics Department Scholars Week Presenters 2024
Livia Lomne-Licastro, Nick Walker, Alexandra Knepp
“Acquisition of L3 Phonology: An Overview”
Anuk Centellas and Chloe Maple
“Allophones of Voiceless Fricatives in Catalan”
Hayley Abella and Nicki Wasson
“Allophonic Variation of Plosives in Southern Dialect Potawatomi”
Rosie O’Malley-Knudson
“Apples and Oranges: How the syllabic /l/ is vocalized in Harlem dialect”
Ana Marbett and Katie Leiendecker
“Dialectal Variations in Spanish Spirantization”
Dana Gravseth
“Identity and Spanish Heritage Language Variability”
Ellie Lorenzen
“The Perception of Spanish Accented English by Monolingual English and Bi/multilingual Students Attending Western Washington University”
Alex Williams
“The Russian coda: a sonority-based approach to L2 acquisition”
Ilsa O’Rollins
“Two temporal na’s in Asante Twi”
Faculty Spotlight
CMC Conversation hosts WWU Linguistics professor
Edward Vajda was recently interviewed by by radio host Charles McCullough in a podcast titled "Comparing Siberian Ket language to Native American languages"
Edward Vajda co-authors new Yeniseian dictionary
Edward Vajda, who teaches linguistics, Russian, and Eurasian studies in Western’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences, and Heinrich Werner, the world's foremost expert on Yeniseic (Yeniseian) languages, sought to create a comparative-historical Yeniseian dictionary that is readily accessible to English speakers.
Western Linguistics professors publish 'Thinking like a Linguist'
Western Professor of Linguistics Kristin Denham and Assistant Professor of Linguistics Jordan Sandoval have published a new book that introduces the study of language for undergraduate and beginning graduate students who would like to further their linguistics studies.
Western Linguistics professor coauthored new book
Edward Vajda, professor of linguistics, Russian, and Eurasian Studies in Western’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences, along with his long-time colleague Michael Fortescue (professor emeritus, University of Copenhagen), have published a new book, Mid-Holocene Language Connections between Asia and North America.
Dr. Anne Lobeck
Professor of Linguistics Dr. Anne Lobeck was inducted into the 2021 class of Fellows of the Linguistics Society of America.
About the Linguistics Department
Linguistics is the scientific study of language, focusing on investigating the properties of individual languages as well as the characteristics of language as a whole. Linguists are interested in a wide range of questions about language: questions like what language is made of (its internal grammar), how language is processed and produced, how people use language in societies, how children and adults acquire language, and how languages change over time. The study of linguistics connects to the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences and complements interests in fields such as Anthropology, Computer Science, Communication Sciences and Disorders, Neuroscience, Sociology, Psychology, Biology, Philosophy, English, World Languages, and Education.
Contact Information
Mailing Address
Linguistics Department
Western Washington University
516 High Street, MS 9190
Bellingham, WA 98225
Office
Bond Hall 418
Phone: 360-650-3914
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